Reading Frankenstein, Reading the 21st Century

Morgan State University - April 12, 2018

2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of one of the most influential works of British literature. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been the subject of interpretation from every critical perspective, from Marxism to Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies to Critical Race Theory. Since its original publication, stage and film adaptations have been legion, from Presumption in 1823 to James Whale’s classic 1931 adaption and on through Abbott and Costello, the Hammer Films productions of the 1950s to ’70s, and more recent versions by Kenneth Branagh, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, and Daniel Radcliffe. Beyond the realm of the creative arts, though, Frankenstein has entered the public psyche as a symbol of humanity’s disruption of the perceived natural order. References to this story can be found in discussions of bioethics and genetics, race relations, politics, religion, and foreign policy.

Upon the occasion of the novel’s bicentennial, papers are solicited for a one-day interdisciplinary symposium to be held on the campus of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Presenters are encouraged to explore the continuing impact of the novel and its associations in today’s society. Please consider examining this theme through the perspective of any of the following disciplines:

• English or American Literature
• Philosophy
• Business
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Anthropology
• Computer Science
• Women’s and Gender Studies
• Economics
• Fine and Performing Arts
• Health and Physical Education
• History
• Geography
• Medical Technology
• Multimedia Journalism
• Social Work
• Psychology
• Public Health
• Screen Writing and Animation
• World Languages

Please submit 250-word abstracts as MS Word attachments to adam.mekler@morgan.edu by October 1, 2017. Both faculty and students are encouraged to submit and participate.
Please feel free to visit our website: http://l-adam-mekler.com/reading-frankenstein.htm

• approaches to telecollaboration and virtual exchange across disciplines
• learning outcomes of virtual exchange and telecollaboration
• different dimensions of virtual exchange (teachers, teacher trainers, students, administration)
• different modes (blended mobility) and models (e.g. Soliya, Cultura) of virtual exchange
• task design and resources in virtual exchange
• telecollaboration and its role in the development of digital literacies
• technological interfaces and multimodality in telecollaborative exchanges
• virtual exchanges involving learners from non-western contexts and the global South
• telecollaboration and its role in the development of global citizenship
• conflict management in / through telecollaboration
• virtual exchanges as complex learning environments: facing the challenge

• 4 September 2017: call for papers opens
• 15 December 2017: deadline for abstract submission
• 31 January 2018: notification of acceptance; early-bird registration opens
• 28 February 2018: early-bird registration deadline
• 31 March 2018: final registration deadline
• 25-27 April: the conference

The English Department is home to a productive, award-winning faculty whose members pursue research and creative activity across the many diverse fields of English Studies today. In celebrating that work, we would like to acknowledge some of our recent accomplishments.

On June 26, Dr. Jessica Berman gave a lecture, "Trans Reading and Comparative Modernism," at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Later that week, she organized and took part in a roundtable on "Woolf by the Book: Reflecting on Woolf Editions and Companions," at the 28th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, University of Reading, UK. In July, she also gave a paper on "Resourcing Modernism Today: Handbooks, Companions, Guides," on a panel on "Packaging Modernism Today," at the Modernist Studies Association Conference, Amsterdam.

 In July, Professor Corbett was the subject of a column in the San Francisco Chronicle celebrating the role of the Pony Express in linking California with the rest of the nation in the early 1860s. To read the article, please visit http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-the-Pony-Express-linked-an-isolated-SF-to-the-11306475.php He was also a panelist in June in Kansas City on a panel discussion about Mark Twain in the 19th century West. The panel was sponsored by the Western Writers of America's annual meeting that also feature the writer William Least-Heat Moon, author of Blue Highways.

Professor Michael Fallon's non-fiction essay, "The Woman in the Window," was accepted for publication by the Concho River Review. 

Dr. McKinley will present a paper, "The Survival Table in Boccaccio's Decameron 5.9," at the 4th Annual Conference on Food History and Culture, "The Table of the Senses and the Senses of the Table," to be held at the Centre of Classical and Humanistic Studies/Food Heritage/DIATA, University of Coimbra, Portugal from October 25 to 27, 2017. She has also been invited to present a lecture on her book on Chaucer and Boccaccio in the lecture series of the Grellet & Dorothy C. Simpson Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredricksburg, VA, in March 2018.

Professor Purpura was on faculty this summer at the Chautauqua Writing Festival. She has a contract for a new collection of essays (as yet untitled) due out in 2019 with Sarabande Books. New poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Agni and Tin House. A broadside of her Pushcart Prize winning essay, “Scream, or Never-Minding,” will be issued in October from Washington College, where she will give a reading. Haystack School of Crafts recently published her monograph “In the Presence of Makers” (which included a photo by UMBC student Jane Lee). She was the recipient of a Dresher Center Scholarly Completion Grant last spring.  She recently performed with the Poulenc Trio at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.

Dr. Christopher Varlack's book chapter, "'Towards a Trans-Atlantic Approach: Tracing the Modernist Psychodrama and Wasteland Critique--The Poetry of the Political Imagination," was published in Writing the Harlem Renaissance: Revisiting the Vision (Lexington), edited by Emily Allen Williams. This summer, he was invited to serve as the Special Topics Chair for African-American Literature for the 2018 College English Association Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. He will organize all African-American literature panels for the conference, helping to orchestrate the dynamic conversations of texts, history, and popular culture that attendees look forward to each year. He also accepted an invitation to serve as Program Director for the 2018 Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW) Triennial Conference in Denver, CO. 

Eastern Sociological Society

2018 Annual Meeting

Call for Papers

Class and Culture:

Cultural mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance and disruption of social inequality

A Mini-conference at the Eastern Sociological Society’s Annual Meeting

Baltimore, MD:  February 22-25, 2018

Mini-conference dates:  February 23-24, 2018

Co-organizers: Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania and Elliot Weininger, SUNY Brockport

For this ESS mini-conference, we are inviting the submission of papers which interrogate the ways in which class-based cultural practices, broadly conceived, matter in the transmission of inequality and the facilitation of social mobility. Contributions might, for example, highlight the ways in which social class shapes the level of cultural knowledge and skills individuals have and the ways in which these impact how individuals navigate institutions. Or, participants might focus on the ways that class-based cultural practices impact how individuals negotiate personal relationships, interact with institutional gatekeepers, or manage key turning points in their lives. Other topics related to the theme are also welcome.

The mini-conference will of the Eastern Sociological Society annual meetings in the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD. It will begin, however, at noon on Friday February 23^rd and end on Saturday at 5:00 p.m on February 24^th.  Interested participants should submit a long abstract of the proposed paper to ESS on the normal website submission, detailing research question, data source, and provisional findings (if available). (Use keywords “miniconference: Class and Culture”).In addition to submitting the abstract to ESS, please also send copies directly to Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania (alareau@sas.upenn.edu), and Elliot B. Weininger (eweining@brockport.edu), SUNY College at Brockport. The deadline for abstracts is October 15^, 2017._

The conference organizers are also arranging an informal dinner at a local restaurant on Friday evening, February 23^rd around 7:30 p.m.  Every effort will be made to limit expenses, but, due to funding constraints, participants who wish to attend the dinner will need to cover the cost of their own food and drink.  Participation in the dinner is not a requirement of attending the conference; it is simply an opportunity to continue the conversation. Conference attendees will need to register for the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting. For additional details see www.essnet.org

Any questions should be directed to Annette Lareau and/or Elliot Weininger.

Please plan to join us for a lively conversation on class and culture in Baltimore.

The Dissertation Fellowship is designed to provide doctoral candidates at UMBC an opportunity to devote the necessary concentration and attention towards finishing the writing of their dissertations.  The Fellowship is specifically designed for students with full-time jobs off-campus, for those without any financial support who are making steady progress with their writing, and for whom having additional time and resources would permit them to complete the process more expeditiously.  

• be in good academic standing;
• provide a letter of support from the Chair of the Dissertation Committee that

• provide, if employed outside the university, written evidence from the student’s employer indicating the employer’s willingness to reduce job time and duties in order for the student to participate in the Fellowship;
• submit a dissertation abstract of no more than two pages in length; and
• submit a 1-2 page management plan signed by the Chair of the Dissertation Committee describing the status of the dissertation work, the steps required to complete the work, and the feasible time line for completion.
• Identify, if a prior recipient of a Dissertation Fellowship, the prior term (e.g., Spring 2017) in which the Fellowship was received.